Searching for comets in the main belt asteroid population

According to the latest views on cometary populations, comets originate in
three different reservoirs, the Oort cloud, the Kuiper belt and the main
asteroid belt.

The Oort cloud, at 3.000-50.000 AU from the Sun, supplies the Halley
family (HFC) and long period comets, The Kuiper belt, beyond Neptune, at a
range of 30-50 AU from the Sun, supplies the Jupiter family comets (JFC),
recently Henry H. Hsieh* and David Jewitt (1) have found what seems to be a
third family of comets originating in the asteroid main belt (MBC).

The Halley and Jupiter families are well stablished, and have have
numerous members, but the MBC family only has the following members so far
:

Asteroidal designation

Cometary designation

a (AU)

e

i

H

Tj

(7968) Elst-Pizarro

133P Elst-Pizarro

3.16

0.16

1.39

14

3.18

-

P/2005 U1 READ

3.16

0.25

1.27

n/a

3.15

(118401) 1999 RE70

-

3.20

0.19

0.24

15.1

3.17

Dynamically, two of the three MBCs (EP and 118401) are associated with the
Themis collisional family, with P/Read
falling just outside this family due to its slightly high eccentricity. This
family association is possibly an artifact of observational selection and
there may well be other MBCs not in this family.

Thermal averaging inside the nuclei will lead to deep interior
temperatures near the local blackbody value. At 3.2 AU (the approximate
semimajor axis distance of all three MBCs), this temperature is 155 K, at
which ice is thermodynamically stable. At smaller distances, higher deep
interior temperatures may prevent the survival of ice over the age of the
Solar system.

Careful observations in search of comae on closer asteroids are needed, it
is possible that non-Themis objects that outgas also exist but have so far
escaped detection (1)

I've written an interactive planner for the
observation of objects of the Themis family, be aware that the data is pulled
from the MPCORB and thus the elements are osculating and not proper, this may
lead to the inclusion of some outliers in the plan.